Responding to criticism from both Mac users and virtualization enthusiasts upset at the fact they have to buy a more expensive version of Vista just to be able to run it using Parallels, Microsoft had announced plans that would have allowed the Vista Home versions to be run in virtual machines only to later decide to stick with the original licensing that was announced last fall. Microsoft had hoped that by only allowing Vista Business or Ultimate that only “sophisticated users and businesses” would run virtual machines and that would limit any potential security risk.

Thanks in part to Parallels, virtualization is becoming pretty common on the Mac and many would like to be able to run Vista but simply are not going to because they would either have to install a Home version that violates the licensing agreement or have to pay for the Business or Ultimate version. Microsoft has agreed that the Home version presents no additional security risk however they have still decided against allowing its use and even worse have provided little reason for the flip flop.